NORFOLK GARAGE
I found myself having to shuffle jobs around to make room for some urgent repairs to a Defender 300Tdi which was being prepared for shipping abroad. The transport had been booked, all the paperwork sorted out, and then the shipper informed the owner that the vehicle would not be accepted if it was leaking oil. Now as we all know, an oil-tight Defender is a rare beast indeed, but there is a world of difference between a bit damp underneath and leaving little black puddles on the floor, which was what this particular Defender was doing. I could see two separate leaks which needed attention. One was engine oil dripping out of the wading plug hole on the flywheel housing, which was obviously coming from a failed crankshaft oil seal.
There was also oil dripping from the bottom of the transfer ’box where it bolted to the main gearbox. This is something I see very often and almost always originates from oil getting past the O-ring at the front end of the transfer ’box intermediate shaft. The O-ring hardens with age: the shaft itself is above the oil level, so although you get a slow and steady seepage of oil it seldom escalates into anything worse. To replace the O-ring the gearbox and transfer ’box have to be separated, so I normally advise owners just to monitor the situation until the transmission has to be removed for some other reason.
In this case, and given that either the engine or transmission would have to come out regardless to replace the crankshaft seal, the best course of action was obvious, and I soon had the transmission assembly on the floor. I have a big old steel-framed pallet which I use for gearbox work: I stood the transmission on
